Jaguar Land Rover: Redundancies
Debate between Liam Byrne and Blair McDougall(2Â weeks ago)
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Liam Byrne (Birmingham Hodge Hill and Solihull North) (Lab)
The loss of 4,000 jobs at Jaguar Land Rover is a body blow for workers, families and communities across the west midlands, so I commend Richard Parker, the Mayor of the West Midlands, for moving quickly on Monday to put ÂŁ500,000 on the table to help ensure that everybody gets back to work. Will the Minister pledge that if more is needed he will act to back the mayor in getting everybody back to work?
More broadly, will the Minister reiterate the pledges he made yesterday in front of the Select Committee to bring down costs—especially energy costs—and leave his mind open to the necessity of implementing tariffs on China, which is exporting cars that are over-subsidised? At the end of the day, everybody in the House believes in competition, but it needs to be fair competition.
Blair McDougall
I thank the Select Committee Chair for that series of questions. I know that for him this is not just a Committee interest but a local interest. I will take his points in reverse order.
As I said to my right hon. Friend yesterday in the Select Committee, we have to be very careful about Chinese imports. Our automotive industry is very export-focused, and the industry wants us to be very careful not to do anything in protecting our domestic manufacturers that might hurt them by closing down markets elsewhere. As I said to him yesterday, we are looking carefully at that, but we must be very careful.
On energy, we would love to go further than the British industrial competitiveness scheme. It is worth noting that when we initially introduced the proposal for BICS, it was for fewer businesses than will be eligible and will start to apply for it in a matter of days. We will continue to see how far we can go on that, because we are aware of how much of a problem there is for so many parts of industry.
Finally, we are working incredibly closely with the mayor. The main request from those involved in the situation at Jaguar Land Rover is that we continue to focus on the support we are giving to them in innovation, for the supply chain and in standing behind them, so that they come out strong and resilient on the other side of these global challenges.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Liam Byrne and Blair McDougall(6Â months, 1Â week ago)
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Liam Byrne (Birmingham Hodge Hill and Solihull North) (Lab)
The Select Committee recently flagged that small businesses in our country now face pandemic-level pressures. In April, standing charges for energy are set to rise by 60%, with no price cap protection. Now, soaring oil and gas prices threaten to be the final straw for thousands of SMEs. Will the Secretary of State make an urgent assessment of the risk of soaring energy prices, and give a clear account of how we will keep the SMEs that keep this country running in business?
Blair McDougall
My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. We have taken action through the British industrial competitiveness scheme, which is a downpayment on exactly the sort of support he describes. We are constantly working on ways to cut costs for small businesses, and I am sure we will work with the Select Committee on that.